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Their fragrance of delight and love

diffuse." p. 136–9.

Redundant and over minute as these descriptions undoubtedly are, it is impossible not to feel, that they are conceived in the true spirit, and expressed in the genuine language, of poetry. We must add a few specimens of Mr. Southey's delineations of character and affection.

"Hope, we have none, said Kailyal to her

sire.

Said she aright? and had the mortal maid

No thoughts of heavenly aid, No secret hopes her inmost heart to

move

With longings of such deep and pure desire,

As vestal maids, whose piety is love, Feel in their ecstacies, when rapt above,

Their souls unto their heavenly spouse aspire!

Why else so often doth that search

ing eye

Roam through the scope of sky? Why if she sees a distant speck on high,

Starts there that quick suffusion to her cheek?

'Tis but the eagle, in his heavenly

height; Reluctant to believe, she hears his cry,

And marks his wheeling flight, Then languidly averts her mournful sight.

Why ever else, at morn, that waking sigh,

Because the lovely form no more is nigh

Which hath been present to her soul all night;

And that injurious fear

Which ever, as it riseth, is represt, Yet riseth still within her troubled breast,

That she no more shall see the Glendo

veer!" p. 141, 142.

Her emotions, when defaced with leprosy by the wrath of Kehama, have a character of equal tenderness and greater dignity.

"This is a loathsome sight to human eye,

Half-shrinking at herself, the maiden thought,

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This is a loathsome sight to human eye,

But not to eyes divine, Ereenia, son of heaven, oh not to thine!" p. 204, 205.

There is something very sweet and touching in their meeting after this disaster.

"Thou seest his poor revenge! So having said,

One look she glanced upon her leprous stain

Indignantly, and shook
Her head in calm disdain.

O maid of soul divine!
And more than ever dear,
And more than ever mine,
Replied the Glendoveer:

He hath not read, be sure, the mystick

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My Marriataly, it was thou!

I had not else been here

To share my father's curse,

To suffer now,... and yet to thank thee thus!" p. 32.

And, again, when they are sent back from mount Meru, to wander on the earth

"Thus to her father spake the imploring maid:

Oh! by the love which we so long have born

Each other, and shall never cease to bear... Oh! by the sufferings we have shared,

And must not cease to shareOne boon I supplicate in this dread hour,

One consolation in this hour of wo! Thou hast it in thy power, refuse not

thou

The only comfort now

That my poor heart can know.

O dearest, dearest Kailyal! with a smile Oftenderness and sorrow, he replied, O best beloved, and to be loved the best, Most worthy,... set thy duteous heart at rest.

I know thy wish; and let what will betide, Ne'er will I leave thee wilfully again. My soul is strengthened to endure its pain,

Be thou, in all my wanderings, still my guide;

Be thou, in all my sufferings at my side. The maiden, at those welcome words, imprest

A passionate kiss upon her father's cheek." p. 132, 133.

Mr.

We fear we have already extended those quotations to a length which our unpoetical readers will not easily forgive; but we must add the following passage, in which Southey throws all the brightness of original poetry upon the old classical fiction of the souls of infants being stationed in the outskirts of the Elysian world.

"Innocent souls! thus set so early

free

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Received into its universal breast.

Yon blue serene above

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We here close our extracts, and take our leave of Mr. Southey. We wish we could entertain any tolerable hopes of converting him from the damnable heresies into which he has fallen, and to which, if he does not reform speedily, we fear his reputation will die a martyr. The great space we have allowed former occasions, proves sufficiently him to occupy, both now and on what importance we attach to his very errours, and what great things, we think, might be expected from him, if he could only be made to exert himself on the same side with

those who have hitherto succeeded in commanding the admiration of the world. To those who care little for our opinions, the copious extracts which we have given, will afford a safer ground of conclusion; and we conceive, that no reader of any taste or sensibility can peruse even those detatched fragments, without feeling that Mr. Southey is gifted with powers of fancy and of expression beyond almost any individual of his age: and that in the expression of all the tender and amiable, and quiet affections, he has had but few rivals; either in past or in present time. These are rare and

Was their domain; clouds pillowed them precious qualities; the intrinsick

to rest;

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value of which cannot be destroyed

by their combination with others of an opposite character, and to which we shall always be glad to do homage in spite of any such combination. But a childish taste, and an affected manner, though they cannot destroy genius, will infallibly deprive it of its glory; and must be re

probated, therefore, with a severity proportioned to the mischief they occasion; a mischief that can only be measured by the greatness of the excellence they hide, and will always be stated the highest by those to whom that excellence is dearest

FROM THE UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE.

Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song: with historical and traditional Notices relative to the Manners and Customs of the Peasantry. Now first published by R. H. Cromek, F. A. S. Ed. Editor of "The Reliques of Robert Burns." 1 vol. 8vo. 1810.

TO Mr. Cromek every lover of Scottish poetry is already deeply indebted for the industry and taste with which he collected materials for an additional volume to the works of Robert Burns. Of that work our opinion has been given in our eleventh volume, p. 132:* but we are now called upon to consider a production of a very different nature: a production which characterizes the modes of thought and feeling among the peasantry of a sister kingdom, and which, in its compilation, reflects no common praise upon the enthusiasm with which Mr. Cromek must have pursued his labour, and the judgment with which it is executed.

The contents of this volume form a subject more than usually interesting to the philosopher and the critick. They are not the matured efforts of labour, study, and learning; they are not the offspring of refinement, nor are they executed from any prescribed model: they are the simple, natural, and heart-warm effusions of rustick feeling: they describe those passions which nature plants, nourishes, and expands: they have been written with no expectations of renown; they have floated upon the breath of tradition: the very names of their authors are un

known: and just when the period had arrived that they would probably have died with their possessors, Mr. Cromek has arrested them in their fleeting progress, and has given them "a local habitation and a name."

The inquiry which might lead to a satisfactory explanation of the causes, whether physical, moral, or political, that have concurred to give to the peasantry of Scotland that superiority of mind which could produce such exquisite poetry as is contained in this volume, would carry us into a discussion too prolix for the pages of our miscellany. We feel, however, all the importance of the topick, and wish that we had space to do it justice. As we cannot, however, let us pass to a consideration of the volume itself.

The first thing that arrests our attention is an "Introduction" from the pen of Mr. Cromek, in which we find many very pertinent and judi cious remarks upon the subject of Scottish poetry: a subject upon which he can scarcely feel more enthusiasm than we do; but his enthu siasm has led to enterprise: it has not been a vague and general feeling of the mind. The manners of the peasantry, also their superstitions, their customs, and their po

See Select Reviews, vol. II. p. 10.

pular prejudices, come in for a share of his attention.

The introductory paragraphs deserve to be transcribed.

"The Scottish poets have raised a glorious fabrick of characteristick lyrick, the fairest, perhaps, any nation can boast. The foundations were laid by various unknown hands, and even of those who raised the superstructure few have attained the honour of renown; but the

whole has been reformed and completed by a man whose fame will be immortal as his genius was transcendant. The name of ROBERT BURNS, let a Scotchman pronounce it with reverence and affection! He produced the most simple and beautiful lyricks himself; he purified and washed from their olden stains many of the most exquisite of past ages. He collected others with all the glowing enthusiasm of an antiquary, and with the keen eye of an exquisite critick and poet. It was on these beautiful old ballads and songs that Burns laid the foundation of his greatness. Their simplicity he copied; he equalled their humour, and excelled their pathos. But that flame which they helped to raise absorbed them in its superiour brightness; so that the more we investigate the sources from which he drew, the more our reverence for his genius is increased. Whatever he transplanted grew up and flourished with a vigour unknown in the parent soil; whatever he imitated sinks almost into insignificance placed by the side of the imitation. He rolls along like a mighty river, in the contemplation of which the scattered streams that contribute to its greatness are forgotten.

"It has been the work of the present collector to redeem some of those fine old ballads and songs, overshadowed by the genius of Burns; such, especially, as have never before been published, and are floating in the breath of popular tradition.

"Many of these are peculiar to certain districts of Scotland, and tracts of finely situated country. Deeply founded in the manners and customs of the peasantry, they keep hold of their minds, and pass from generation to generation by these local ties: their flashes of broad humour, their vivid description render them popular; and their strong touches of native feeling and sensibility make a lasting impression on the heart.

"It is worthy of remark, that in no district of England are to be found specimens of this simple and rustick poetry. The influence of commerce has gradually alter

ed the character of the people: by creating new interests and new pursuits, it has weakened that strong attachment to the soil which gives interest to the localities of popular ballads, and has destroyed those cherished remembrances of former times

which impart to a rude, an unpolished strain, all the pathos of the most laboured elegy.

"We may safely premise, that many of the most valuable traditional songs and ballads perished in those afflicting times of reformation and bloodshed which be

long to queen Mary, to Charles, and to James. A great change then took place in the Scottish character; the glowing vivacity and lightsomeness of the Caledonian muses were quenched in the gloomy seve rity of sour, fanatick enthusiasm, and ironfeatured bigotry. The profanity of the song was denounced from the pulpit, and the pollution by its touch: dancing, to which holy lips of Calvinism would not suffer it is nearly allied, was publickly rebuked, attired in fornicator's sackcloth. The innocent simplicity and airiness of song gave way to holier emanations; to spiritualized ditties, and to the edifying cadence of religious, reforming cant. Such seems to have been the state of song when Allan Ramsay arose. His beautiful collection rekindled the smothered embers of lyrick poetry; but he could not redeem the lost treasures of past ages; nor rake from the ashes of the fallen religion the sacred relicks of its songs. A few were redeemed; but they were trimmed anew, and laced with the golden thread of metaphysick foppery, over the coarse and homely hoddingray of rural industry. Their naïveté of feeling, their humour and amiable simplicity now gave way to the gilded and varnished trappings and tasselings of courtly refinement.

"Scottish humour attempted to smear his thistles with the oil and balm of polite satire, till they lost their native pungency. Love was polished, and boardingschooled, till the rough mint-stamp of nature was furbished off it. The peasantry, however, preserved, in their traditional songs and ballads, a fair portion of the spirit and rough nature of the olden times. To the peasantry the Scotch are indebted for many of their most exquisite compositions. Their judgment in the selection and preservation of song scarcely can be sufficiently appreciated :Barbour's Bruce; Blind Harry's Sir William Wallace; Ramsay's original works, and his Collection of Songs; Fergusson, and Burns are to be found in every Scot

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"So great and rapid, indeed," says Mr. C. has been the change, that in a few years the songs and ballads here selected would have been irrecoverably forgotten.

"The old cottars (the trysters of other year) are mostly dead in good old age; and their children are pursuing the bustle of commerce frequently in foreign climates. The names of their bards have been sought after in vain; they live only in song, where they have celebrated their social attachments.

"It is affecting to think that poets, capable, perhaps, of the wild creations of Milton; the bewitching landscapes and tenderness of Thomson; the faithful nature of Ramsay; or the sublimity, eloquent pathos, and humour of Burns; it is affecting to think that they lie be low the turf, and all that can now be redeemed from the oblivious wreck of their genius is a few solitary fragments of song! But these remnants show the richness of the minds which produced them; they impress us with a noble idea of peasant abilities, and a sacred reve. rence for their memory.

"Such might have been the fate even of Robert Burns, had not a happy combination of adverse and fortunate circumstances brought his works before the publick tribunal. Some stranger might, a short while hence, have been gather

ing up the ruins of his mighty genius, and wondering while he collected them in morsels from the remembrance of tradition; nor need it be deemed extravagant to assert, that Nithsdale and Galloway have, at some period of fifty years back, nourished, among their harvesting and their pastoral valleys, a rustick bard, who sung the loves and feelings of his fellow-peasants, and who bemoaned in undying strains, the deplorable ravages of 1745, and, perhaps, shared in the general and desolating ruin."

In stating the origin of this volume, we shall prefer to use Mr. Cromek's own words :

"These ballads and songs are gleaned from among the peasantry of Nithsdale, and the skirts of Galloway, adjoining to it. They were never printed before, and are ripe in the sentiments and feelings of mixed with their humour. To those who their forefathers, and often deliciously wish to know how the peasantry think and feel, these Remains will be acceptable. They may be considered as so many unhewn altars raised to rural love, and local humour and opinion, by the genius of unlettered rusticity.

"In works of compilation like the present, the labour of an editor, however severe, is least apparent, and as far as regards the publick, of very inferiour consideration. It may be proper, however, to say a few words respecting the remarks which are interspersed through the present volume.

"It has been my purpose to avoid the mistake into which collectors are prone to fall, of heaping on their materials a mass of extraneous lumber in the shape of facts and dates, of minute discussions and conjectural emendations, equally perplexing to themselves and to the reader. It is by no means a subject of boast that I have avoided this reproach, for, circumstanced as I was, to have incurred it would have been unpardonable.

"In the progress of this collection, it was necessary to have personal intercourse with the peasantry, in whose traditions these Remains were preserved. From a race of men so interesting, and so rich in original character, volumes of curious and valuable remark might be gathered; hence, from access to a mine so abundant, it was more a business of selection than of toil, to derive details which might establish what was doubtful, and illustrate what was obscure. At

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